(The Transformation of Lehigh County from its historic agricultural roots to that spiraling urbanization as part of the Megalopolis )

By Dennis L. Pearson

(c) 2009 by Dennis L. Pearson --- All Rights Reserved --- No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by any informationstorage or retrieval system, without permission from the author

Part One

Preface

During the mid to late fifties the Lehigh Valley was predominately agricultural in both orientation and thought. The then existing industrial complex being primarilyconcentrated in the cities (that is, Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton in Pennsylvania and Phillipsburg in New Jersey) and a few outlying suburban communities. We note the heart of this four county industrial complex comprised the Bethlehem SteelCorporation, New Jersey Zinc Company, Ingersoll-Rand, Mack Trucks, Air Products & Chemicals, Lehigh Portland Cement and Western Electric ( evolving from AT & T Technologies, Lucent Technologies, to Agere Technologies and to LSI)

In the same mid to late fifties period there stood a lonely candle-like building protruding upward into the sky like a beacon for progress. This was the corporate headquarters for the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company located at 9th & Hamilton Streets in downtown Allentown. It was the area's only skyscraper then, easy to see day or night, in an empty and seemingly undeveloped land that could not comprehend or visualize that P.P & L would become a very strong advocate or ally for planned industrial development activities and home development activities that would forever change the long-term economic usage of land resources that can be best described as sacred and irreplaceable.

Simply stated, whether individuals within the PP & L were the authors, the disciples, the instigators, the planners, the architects, or the draftsmen of enhanced transformation activities, the historic fact is that corporate leaders of PP & L in the mid to late fifties understood that such activities would increase customer demand for electric service within the PP & L's service area. Consequently, corporate leadersinformed corporate stockholders that additional power capacity had to be furnished to meet the future requirements of new residential, industrial, and commercial customers. And with this investment in capital and resources, the PP & L had a vested interest in offering its expertise to those adherents for enhanced urban development whose implied and secret purpose was to educate both the public and governmentofficials as to benefits that would be derived from economic development activities in areas that were historically agricultural in orientation and thought.

Genevieve Blatt, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Affairs in the George Leader Administration (1955 - 1958) once likened Metropolitan area growth in the UnitedStates to the human life. She said:

"We're now suffering the same growing pains that at the same time depressed us and exhilarated us as individuals in our adolescence... Adolescence goes hand in handwith boundless energy, limitless imagination, chronic optimism, and in some instances a bit of naiveté that comes from lack of experience,"

In analysis, Secretary Blatt suggested that our communities were leaping from infancy to adulthood without being able to afford the luxury of casual youth. To which we reply: " The thought has occurred to us that this sudden rush of the Lehigh Valley from infancy to adolescence to premature adulthood could lead to a dramatic decline into maturity and senility in rapid succession if the destruction of moralconsiderations resultant from uncontrolled and mismanaged economic development became too severe to be corrected within acceptable monetary limits."

In 1957, Ralph C. Swartz, a Vice President for Commercial Operations for the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company, explained to the Tri-City Conference, an association comprising public officials of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, that a community can be stable, can grow and expand in wealth only " by mining, manufacturing, and processing commodities to sell." Hence, the wealthof a community depended upon its industry.

But what factors are important to an industry seeking a site for location or expansion? Mr. Swartz spelled out that an industry seeking a site for location or expansion looks for a desirable industrial climate, good labor markets, reasonable tax rates, plus good schools, churches, residential areas andrecreational and cultural facilities. But what Mr. Swartz stressed most was that industry wanted to be accepted not just by public officials but by the public as well. He said: " The attitude of the public reflects on its public officials andhealthy relationships result."

*** *** ***We initiated this study believing that we can come to a general understanding concerning the chronology and decision-making that has led to the planned orunanticipated destruction of the character of the Lehigh Valley's landscape from largely rural to urban sprawl in the name of an ideal called Megalopolis.

A megalopolis, of course, is an urban complex encompassing several major cities. Its application in the Lehigh Valley region would be the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (S.M.S.A) of Allentown-Bethlehem and Easton (A-B-E). The A-B-E S.M.S.A comprises the Counties of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton in Pennsylvania and Warren County in New Jersey. We add that in regards to this study we shall concentrate on considerations that have impacted upon Lehigh County and its major city, Allentown; and we shall onlyconcern ourselves with Carbon, Northampton or Warren Counties should developments there tie-in and match our field of consideration.

Basically, we are very concerned that the long-range regional drive for economic transformation, community metamorphosis and social reorganization may be too costly to achieve in terms of both moral and monetary values; andmore important, it may be too costly to achieve in the terms of the necessitated encroachment upon personal values and freedom.

What we have in the Allentown-Lehigh County area is a clash of what individuals, groups, corporations, and government units’ view as the undefined future. Simply stated --- one facet of the argument is the growth-no growth issue, the other facet is a creation of a new balance of power.

Allentown, the County Seat of Lehigh County, the declining industrial, and besieged retail and cultural center of the Lehigh Valley, still tends to view the suburban and rural areas of the Lehigh County as the tribute-paying coloniesthey once were. It still regards itself as the real center of power in the area, not having come to grips with a change in population demographics and the inexorable slide of jobs and money in other directions.

The fact is, since 1970 the city's population declined about 5.6 percent while the population of Lehigh County inclusive of Allentown population figures rose by 5.5 percent. The population of Lehigh County in 1980 comprises 272,349 souls.In want of a better word, the townships and municipalities of western Lehigh County consider Allentown as irrelevant. Outside the municipal boundaries of Allentown are locating the industries, which hopefully would keep LehighCounty and the Lehigh Valley a growth area throughout the rest of the century and beyond. Its natural markets and lessons about living are inclined toward influence other than Allentown.

We note --- as this process gained momentum, it produced within the region's chief city (Allentown) a more urban style population with all its related social and economic problems, and has fostered a tax base that in the best scenario hasgrown only slightly. A development, which in the course of time has affected the city’s ability to provide, needed services in such areas as parks and recreation, health delivery, police and fire protection. Yet, the water and wastewatertreatment service provided by Allentown has historically been the focal point around which suburban units sought growth for their communities.

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The Borough of Emmaus became the first municipality to tie-in into the Allentown wastewater treatment network and this tie-in set the stage for other tie-in requests; requests that Allentown could only handle by expansion of reserve capacity of the Kline's Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.

We surmise that the Borough of Emmaus announcement in October of 1956 that it would build a wastewater treatment plant on the Little Lehigh Creek just one- half mile above the Allentown water filtration plant intake had a troublingaftermath on Allentown Officials.

Allentown Mayor Donald V. Hock placed this problem on the agenda of the Tri-City Conference, which comprised the mayors, and municipal officials of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton. Historically, The Tri-City Conference can bebest described as an early predecessor of regional planning that in our study period had not outlived its usefulness despite the existence of the Joint Planning Commission of Lehigh and Northampton Counties. This point demonstrated by the periodic get together of Allentown Mayor Joseph S.Daddona, Bethlehem Mayor Paul Marcincin, and Easton Mayor Salvatore Panto and their top aides.

It was this Tri-City Conference that sponsored a historic gathering of representatives from twenty-three political subdivisions of Lehigh and Northampton Counties that met at the former South Mountain Junior High School in Allentown during a snow storm, October 7, 1957... Furthermore, it wasthis association that invited or arranged for Genevieve Blatt, the Secretary of Internal Affairs in the George Leader Administration, to be the main speaker.

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Our initial mission was to chronicle the enthusiasm of political leaders, influential citizens, businessmen and the electronic and printed media to advance the opening of western Lehigh County for new economic developmentactivities. In the pages of the Lehigh Valley Common Sense Herald we characterized these people as the masterminds of the transformation and noted that they had acquired the mind set that traditional agricultural activities in western Lehigh County in the long-run would not be economically correct forthe future interests of Lehigh County.

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Nevertheless in Lehigh County a number of citizens emerged to express concerns about the loss of open space in the County. Consequently, in 1987, the Lehigh County Commissioners adopted a resolution creating a LehighCounty Farmland Preservation Task Force. This task force reviewed Lehigh County farmland studies, assessed county wide interest in farmland preservation, and made recommendations for future farmland preservationactions in the county.

But surely one can surmise that this incipient County farmland preservation activity was not conducted in complete isolation. Lehigh County officials and advocates for land preservation had to be aware that the State of Pennsylvaniain 1987 had placed a $100 million farmland preservation bond referendum on that year's November general election ballot. The bond issue passed but at this moment my research has not revealed whether the County took this actionbefore the election in anticipation of passage of the bond and the enactment of new enabling legislation that they could tap money from or afterward.

And on whatever side one was on the growth or non-growth issue, both sides acted the same way when money was added into the equation... Money created interest in whatever activity it advocated.

As it happened, following the passage of the bond issue, the Pennsylvania legislature amended the Agricultural Area Security Law (Act 43 of 1981), enabling Pennsylvania counties to tap the $100 million farmland preservation fund for the purchase of agricultural conservation easements.

You guessed it, 1989, the Lehigh County Commissioners established a Lehigh County Agricultural Land Preservation Board with Ordinance 1989 - No. 117. This 9 member board's primary purpose was to preserve farmland in LehighCounty by developing and administering a program to purchase agricultural conservation easements from landowners in the county.

As a community asset, open space was thought as one of the features that made the Lehigh Valley such a pleasant place to live. But a good thing sometimes becomes a victim of its own popularity so this wonderful thing has become a shrinking commodity. And as such, many civic minded individuals believed that the people of the Lehigh Valley must act collectively through their governments to protect our rich inheritance. Of course, the consequence of the failure to do so would mean that the Lehigh Valley would come just another part of the suburban sprawl of the Boston to Washington D.C megalopolis instead of an oasis in its geographic center.

Historically, efforts to preserve open space are usually popular with the public. Bond issues to do that were supported and passed in Bucks, Montgomery and Chester counties.

We ask, did public sentiment in the Lehigh Valley Counties of Lehigh and Northampton share the same positive feeling for open space preservation?

Polling by the Green Future Fund claimed there was widespread backing for this kind of spending among voters of Lehigh and Northampton counties. And in fact, a survey in 1999 by the Joint Planning Commission of the Lehigh Valley found 92 percent of local voters thought preserving farmland was important, and 69 percent would favor spending on open space

This led a diverse group of civic leaders calling themselves the Green Future fund to propose that Lehigh and Northampton County float a $120 million in bonds - $60 million in his county - to purchase land and build parks. But they later refined their proposal to a smaller sum of $60 million - $30 million in each county.

In late 2001, the Lehigh County Commissioners began their discussion whether they should float a $30 million bond to preserve open space. Financially, borrowing that much money came at an average cost of $24 a year per household during the length of the bond.

A voicer in the Morning Call of December 3, 2001 said that the County Executive Jane Ervin and the Commissioners had the choice of enacting an ordinance on their own to borrow money for the preservation of open space or leave it to the people through an advisory referendum.

The voicer opined at the time that if County Officials had chosen to pass the ordinance on their own without referring it to referendum, that might have been the courageous thing to do and also political risky, so they chose the latter.

Thus, as it happened, continued concerns about the loss of open space prompted the County to conduct a referendum to establish a $30 million bond pool – the Green Future Fund – to preserve parks, open space and farmland. This proposal was supported by 64 percent of the voters in the May primary of 2002.The measure passed 14,984 to 6,245, according to unofficial results.

Michael Frassinelli of the Morning Call reported May 22, 2002 that one happy community advocate said about the referendum: "I can't wait to hear children playing on new playgrounds in their neighborhoods,"

Said Commissioner Chairman Percy H. Dougherty: "Nobody can object to this now, with this resounding referendum,,, We're looking at what the Lehigh Valley is going to look like for generations ahead. Saving the land now is what is going to be important for the future."

And finally, Alan Jennings, director of the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley prophetsized that the measure would benefit inner city Allentown as well as the suburbs.

In a 2005 Lehigh County Land Use and Growth Management, Lehigh County touted itself as having a very aggressive farmland and open space preservation program focused upon acquisitions outside the path of future growth. As ofJune 2003, the Lehigh County Agricultural Land Preservation Board had protected 154 farms with permanent conservation easements totaling 13,925 acres – or about 6 percent of the County’s total land area. The highest concentration of preserved farmland is located in the northwestern part of the County. An area that for years was represented for years by quiet-spoken but iron willed Sterling Raber whose day time job was a pig farmer.

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While all the above happened in Lehigh County, Northampton County Administration Director James Hickey in 2002 said county solicitor Jack Spirk had issued an opinion that the county's home rule charter did not allow council to approve a referendum, advisory or otherwise, on matters involving county expenses.

Northampton County's expanding preservation budget, including the potential for an open space bond issue, had prompted County Executive Glenn Reibman to propose the creation of an open space preservation coordinator to oversee the various efforts.

J. Michael Dowd said he expected Tim Merwarth to spearhead council's efforts on the issue and lead its discussions with Reibman on an appropriate role for the new open space administrator

As events evolved, the Northampton County Council's Open Space Committee leaned toward conducting a public poll -- rather than a referendum -- to gauge whether residents would support a multi-million dollar environmental protection project.

Councilman Timothy Merwarth said going with a poll rather than a referendum would allow the county to bypass the question of whether a referendum is legal under the county's home rule charter.

Still at issue was whether that money will be raised through a bond or a targeted tax increase conducted over the next few years. Merwarth said a poll done in 2001 by the Green Future Fund showed that most people polled would favor paying $2 more a year to preserve open space.

And so it occurred. Northampton County Councilman Tim Merwarth was appointed to head the committee, which had a goal of resolving the issue before the April 6 deadline for approval of a ballot question. "We'll do our best to live within the time frame," said council President J. Michael Dowd.

Dowd said he did not select all the committee's members, but one of these would include Northampton County Parks Director Bill Mineo of Williams Township.

Lehigh Valley Green Future Fund co-chair Helene Whitaker told Northampton County Council in early February 2002 that her organization hoped Northampton would follow Lehigh by putting the question on the May ballot.

Unfortunately, this would not occur quickly and easily as Whitaker intended as the Northampton County Council's Open Space Committee told Green Future Fund representatives that they may need more details about the plan than Lehigh County before agreeing to proceed.

Mike Kaiser, Lehigh Valley Joint Planning Commission executive director, said Northampton County would need a different distribution of funds, since it had already borrowed $13 million for open space, farmland and parks in Glenn Reibman's $111 million bond.

With Karen Dolan of Green Future Fund implicating that the fund would have asked for a two- county referendum in November 2001, but was urged strongly not to push for it because of the contentious nature of Northampton County's election.

Some of the Green Future Fund's top donors included Agere Systems, which donated $5,000; Mack Trucks, which donated $2,500; Binney and Smith, which donated $1,000 and contracting firm Alvin H. Butz. Inc., which contributed $2,000.

Other top supporters included philanthropist Edward Donley, former chairman of Air Products, and his wife Inez, who contributed $5,000; Bethlehem philanthropist Marlene O. Fowler, who contributed $10,000 and Leon Holt, a former vice chairman of the board of directors of Air Products, who contributed $5,000.

The group also received $2,000 from the Nature Conservancy, based in Arlington, Va., and $3,000 from the Conservation Campaign, based in Boston.

The contentious nature of the political debate concerning open space in Northampton County went beyond the primary 2002 and into the fall .

Then legal effort to derail the ballot question was rejected earlier in October 2002 by Northampton County Senior Judge Isaac Garb, but opposition remained. The question's language had been changed to make it clear that the issue was not binding. Voters were asked whether County Council should "be authorized to" incur the $37 million debt. Council Open Space Committee Chairman Tim Merwarth said voters didn't have to worry about council following their will: "If the voters vote affirmatively for the open space referendum, council will follow through."

But the heated battle went on to the election.

Members of Citizens for Open Space, the Northampton County incarnation of the Green Future Fund, accused the anti-referendum group, led by Nazareth title searcher Bernie O'Hare and Republican Northampton County Councilman Ron Angle, of cooking up outrageous claims to distort the open space program and scare voters.

County Farmland Preservation Director Roz Kahler maintained that appraisals put those payments at $3,000 to $12,000 per acre. The average per-acre price paid farmers to make their land off- limits to development in 2001 for Lehigh and Northampton counties was $2,333, according to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

According to the Planning Commission's natural areas inventory, priority areas for preserving environmentally sensitive land included the rare habitat of Mount Bethel Fens and Mount Jack Limestone Outcrop in Upper Mount Bethel Township; Big Offset Barren, a forested area in Plainfield Township; and Rismiller Woods in Bushkill Township.

In the end, Northampton County voters sent a clear message in November 2002: Dedicate funds to preserve and enhance the natural environment of the county. Opined the Morning Call November 3, 2002, "Sixty-five percent voter approval of a nonbinding referendum is about as close as you get to a mandate."

The initiative earlier was called the Green Future Fund. The ordinance under discussion would establish the Northampton County 21st Century Open Space Program, to preserve open space and natural areas and assist in municipal park acquisition and development.

The ordinance would create a seven-member board known as the Northampton County Open Space Advisory Board, with members appointed for two-year terms. The board would review applications for the program that have been vetted by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. The board then would make recommendations to County Council for the distribution of grants.

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Since August 1981 the Common Sense Herald has stood tall in reporting the story. But in 1996 a colleague wondered if he could say anything new and profound about the events that have occurred and consequences that followed. He also wondered whether the Common Sense Herald was still the proper vehicle in the age of electronic mail and the Internet to tell the story. This is due to the fact that matters in the Lehigh Valley are now effected by outside forces, which arebeyond the control of local officials on the city and county level, and by trends being set by these outside forces, including the national and international economies.

In the Lehigh Valley, part of the story, of course, is that we are using up too much valuable farmland in order to pursue our economic development goals. And, land developers wait like vultures to devour the carcasses of former farms.

If Western Lehigh County were a real frontier, (that is, it was land occupied by no one except God's creatures,) one pictures hundreds of land hungry settlers arriving by Conestoga wagon in order to claim valuable real estate forthemselves by squatters occupation. Once the signal was given it was a real horse race to stake a claim... However, in the context of Pennsylvania history, the race for land might involve frontiersmen staking out a claim by humanpower rather than by animal power. In fact, we might say that these frontiersmen could have conceivably invented the future Olympic sport of fast walking by their ability to move quickly even though not actually in a running gait. But thatis not the true image of what happened.

The true image was, in fact, detailed in past reports of the Herald and will be recreated in this manuscript: " We present the truth, but you do not comprehend: "A Study of the Transformation of Lehigh County from its Traditional Agricultural Roots to that of Enhanced Urban Sprawl." Pleaseconsider this manuscript as a road map that highlights the important steps along the transformation journey. It was our intent that this road map provides the reader with a constructive understanding of this transformation journey andencourages them to recognize the importance of their personal responsibility to divert these economic activities to the proper highway.

Please note -- When we speak of the proper highway, we do not speak in the physical sense, but in the metaphysical sense. Therefore, we do not speak of route 78, route 33 or Basin Street when we speak of diverting economicdevelopment activities to the proper highway. But interestingly, these roadways indeed played a role as the story line unfolded.

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In this it may appear that we pay more attention to Genevieve Blatt then her participation in the transformation of the Lehigh Valley might warrant. Yet we regard Genevieve Blatt as a symbol of the optimism that prevailed during theperiod concerning economic growth and inter-community co-operation. Consequently, reflection upon Genevieve Blatt's words develop for us a useful tool to introduce the portfolio (or myriad) of quasi-governmental agencies and corporations that developed just before, in conjunction, and within a reasonable time period after her historic visit to the Lehigh Valley.

It also came apparent from our study the ever present participation of the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company in this transitional development. We note --- the presence of a speaker from the P.P & L at the before mentioned SouthMountain Conference. We note --- the use of Jack Gross, an employee of P.P. & L in the drafting and implementation of the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Assistance Act. And, we note the same involvement of another P. P. & L figure in regards to the formation of the Industrial DevelopmentCorporation of Lehigh County.

Are we indicating that the P.P. & L acted irresponsibly in participating as they did? No, we don't say that. But what we say is that the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company growth depended upon the transformation of what might be perceived as undeveloped land into residential units, industrial sites and commercial oriented establishments; and, we do suggest that the P.P & L would encourage public policy to be established toward that end.

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The implied agenda of the P.P. & L received its expression through the creation of the Joint Planning Commission, Lehigh and Northampton Counties and the Industrial Development Corporation of Lehigh County.

Concerning the IDC --- its stated purpose as of 1964 was to assist, develop and promote the industrial and economic development of the County of Lehigh and The City

I. Cyrus Gutman, President of the Industrial Development Corporation of Lehigh County until his retirement in 1984, has proven to be a mainstay in this quest since 1959. Gutman's office and his staff as 0f 1983 has been credited withpaving the way for 244 new industries and commercial projects to start up in the Valley; and, in addition, the services of the IDC were used in 399 expansions of local industries and commercial projects. Statistically, this adds up to approximately 36,430 jobs with annual payrolls of more than $405 million.

These figures seem to be impressive. But, we must stress that most of these gains were in the townships of western Lehigh County, not Allentown; and also, we must inquire whether the good that was derived from these projects renderinsignificant the possible unpleasant realities of excessive moral or monetary costs? Or shall it be vice versa.

What do we mean by moral costs? We mean the abuse of God's elements by individuals guided only by thoughts for material gain. And, in this regard we are speaking of the impairment of air quality, degradation and overuse of waterresources and disturbances and willful depletion of topsoil qualities.

What do we mean by monetary costs? We mean the level of support passed on to present and future taxpayers, users and consumers to finance capital improvement and service projects deemed necessary and a priority by decision-makers whether they be from government, the utilities or business.

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Indeed we live in interesting times in the Lehigh Valley, while officials in Lehigh and Northampton Counties seek economic development activities that use up valuable farmland at an alarming rate; we also see the reverse trend of industrialabandonment in our urban core areas.

Lehigh County economic development leaders are very delighted that brand name companies such as Nestle and Pillsbury have decided to locate land consuming new warehouse operations in what remains of the alfalfa, corn andwheat fields of Western Lehigh County and that Perrier Water of Switzerland and the Coca Cola Bottling Company of Atlanta, Georgia have followed suit

Northampton County, we see more of the same in the Industrial Parks along U.S. Route 22.

However, I ask --- Can these leaders be satisfied with this short list of industrial sites in the urban core of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon Counties of Pennsylvania and Warren County in New Jersey that will be or have been totallyor partially abandoned: Mack Trucks, Lehigh Structural Steel, Black and Decker, Neuweiler Beer, Horlacher Beer, Bethlehem Steel, Durkee-French Foods/Spice Factory, Champion Spark plugs, New Jersey Zinc Company and countless garment mills.

Does this mean that the Lehigh Valley is: lacking in providing a desirable industrial climate? Does this mean that the Lehigh Valley is lacking in providing good labor markets? Does this mean that the Lehigh Valley is lacking in assessing reasonable tax rates? And also, does this mean that the Lehigh Valley is lacking in providing good schools, churches, residential areas and recreational and cultural facilities? And finally, does this mean that public support for industry is lacking in the Lehigh Valley?

I am quite certain that this set of circumstances was quite upsetting to Harrison E. Forker, an avid fisherman, who was very concerned about the quality of Lehigh Valley waterways and the water and sewer infrastructure that supportedeconomic growth activities in the Lehigh Valley region, especially western Lehigh County.

I miss Harry... When I was a young puppy in the old Community of Neighborhood Organizations; it was Harry who took me under his wings... We would spend many hours talking about water and sewer issues... And when Iestablished the Allentown/Lehigh Valley Common Sense Herald Newsletter in 1981, Harry Forker joined the enterprise which also included a third member, Gordon D. Sharp Jr.

I admired Harry for his willingness to confront public officials with his facts and concerns... I admired Harry for his willingness to continue the fight despite the resistance and mockery of public officials and the media... In my book HarryForker did comprehend the long-range environmental and economic impact of the economic development goals advocated by our public officials... In my book, these same public officials did not comprehend in the long-run thenegative implications of their long-range economic development goals.

I am very proud that Harry Forker stood with me the day that we took a sleeping bag to the Office of former Mayor Joseph S. Daddona in protest of then current conditions at the Kline's Island Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Harry, I guess, is now in that place that no wide-eyed developer can go, he is now throwing his fly line into that pristine cold-water stream of eternity seeking to bring in the perfect brook or brown trout...

The early 1996 announcement by nationsCredit that it will relocate various business operations now centered in Allentown and relocate these operations to Dallas, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia is very unsettling. Behaviorists say that weought to feel more comfortable when we know what to expect next.

Unfortunately, that state of circumstance won't work with me on this issue. If we can only expect more of the same, that real-time reality certainly won't make me feel any more comfortable then before. The fact is, I am tired of this internalhemorrhaging that is inflicting the Lehigh Valley even with all the economic development activity that is said to be ongoing. I am tired of the loss of good jobs; and, I am very much concerned by the many dislocations that areoccurring here... And, I pray that we can turn the corner.

The loss of Nation's Credit is just one of a series of economic losses to downtown Allentown which includes the departure of the mortgage servicing center of first fidelity and the corporate headquarters of the Lehigh Portland Cement Company. It is not hard to forget that the onetime All-American City once had a downtown business district (Hamilton Street) flanked by three homegrown department stores which served as a hub for serious shopping bythe vast majority of Lehigh County residents. But as we write, Hess's, Leh's, and Zollinger Harnerd are only notations in the pages of the Queen City's history. The fact is, the shopping district of choice for most Lehigh Countians has moved north to MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. And at thismoment, we are also seeing the development of a second shopping center of choice to the west on Tilghman Street in South Whitehall Township. And, to add to the insult, financial institutions such as Merrill, Lynch. Pierce, Fenner & Smithand Legg, Mason, Wood and Walker, Incorporated have followed the Lehigh County Authority's Highway of Wastewater west and have set up business in the Iron Run Corporate Center in Lower Macungie Township.

Paul McHale, formerly a Democratic U.S. Congressman from the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania (1993-1999) and a Sierra Club supporter, while in office voiced a strong concern that "We're using up valuable farmland" for new industrial sites rather than reusing existing properties that "would be just as appropriate" if the pollution liability questions would be addressed. So in proposed legislation he addressed these pollution liability concerns by providing incentives to expedite the reuse of abandoned industrial sites. Says McHale, "It's vital for the future economy of the Lehigh Valley" that the Brownfields Remediation and Economic Development Act of 1996 be passed. The legislation addressed industrial sites with enough pollution to be considered extreme liability risks for developers and lending institutions, but not enough pollution to qualify for Superfund provisions. McHale's legislation called for the release of liability to new site owners and lenders, which many say constitutes a major roadblock to Brownfieldsdevelopment. The bill reportedly would establish cleanup standards that are protective of public health and the environment. Says McHale: "The responsibility for pollution should be that of the polluters, not those who plan todevelop the land after the polluters are gone.

Hey little children what do you see? One Hundred acres of prime Bethlehem Steel Company property sprawling vacant in front of me! Hey little children what do you see? Blackened and useless hulks of a once proud blast furnace standing in front me! Hey little children what do you see? The faces of effected United Steelworkers of America union members leaving the premises of "OLE" Bessy for the last time!

Later in 1996, employees of the former Allentown office of General Acceptance, Bank of America and Chrysler First also walked out the door of their center city Allentown office for the last time. Their jobs as we said earlier were transferred to Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas, Texas... Some of these employees will choose to follow Nation's Credit to either Atlanta or Dallas or other hot spots within the NationsCredit system... The rest remained behind in a job market that was extremely tight due to the amount of business downsizing that occurred here locally. Even the beacon of economic progress in the Lehigh Valley, the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company, is hard at work reducing its personnel. This scenario, seemingly, a by-product of the economic mindset which inflicts corporate America and corporate Planet Earth today. It's part of the mindset of the freewheeling global economy. That is, domestic or foreign companies essentially in the same business or market, may buy other businesses to incorporate the strength or ingenuity of that business into their own network of businesses and then announce plans to close down the older or less strategic facilities when a surplus of capacity is created in the network

Please note --- such business decisions, result in much dislocation of workers and works to frustrate long-term city planning. City Administrators may think that the worst was over in these dislocations only to see more of the same happen.

For employees of NationsCredit, this trail of tears had its incubation in the1970's when General Acceptance, a local firm, decided to sale out to the Bank of America, not a local firm. To the Bank of America's credit, it did not buy General Acceptance to co-op or eliminate competition, rather it sought to strengthen its own business operations by strengthening and improving the business of General Acceptance. But for whatever reasons, the Bank of America sold the former General Acceptance business unit in Allentown to Chrysler First. Unfortunately, for the former employees of General Acceptance their business unit was rapidly becoming a pawn in the financial market of buy and sell. And Chrysler First brought forth the final act in the drama when it sold off the former General Acceptance business unit to Nation's Credit.

The employees of Bethlehem-based Durkee Spice Factory share the feeling as their parent company, Beatrice, the giant food conglomerate, elected to sale off their business unit to an Australian firm which immediately decided it created surplus capacity in its business organization with its purchase of the Durkee plant in Bethlehem... Perhaps all the long, this Australian firm, wanted to close Durkee and keep its plant in Iowa. So mischievously it elected to pit oneAmerican community against and another to get a better deal. And more mischievously. It forced the United Steelworkers of America to go head to head against another union --- So much for union solidarity! The decision made that the Durkee spice factory based in Bethlehem would become history --- Another casualty of the ongoing economic warfare which has erupted intra-state, inter- state, and internationally! And another sign that the Service economy is taking over big time in the Lehigh Valley as manufacturing leaves. On the very same property that the Durkee Spice Factory proudly stood is now occupied by a Lowe's Store.

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Lastly, before we end this discussion, we find it imperative to state our views on the complex subject of spatial urban growth.

We don't want to give the impression that we are against all spatial urban growth. After all, spatial growth that comes about, as the result of normal population increase pressures is simply avoidable and natural. But spatial urban growth being the end result of induced and unneeded speculative ventures is avoidable and unfortunate.

We acknowledge that the "die was cast" for past, present and possible future spatial urban growth activities the day Allentown agreed to accept effluent from Emmaus into its wastewater treatment network; and significantly, this occurrence also marked the regionalization of Allentown's Kline's Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.

We note --- a lot of money these past years have been spent by either the City of Allentown, County of Lehigh, Lehigh County Authority and suburban entities to create an inter-linking interceptor and collector system that would be serviced by one or more regional wastewater treatment plants. The excuse for these projects was the need to have in place the infrastructure necessary to service wanted economic development projects like F.M. Schaefer Brewing Company and Kraft Foods. Notice --- we have underlined the word wanted because there is a question whether the need was present for said projects being located where they were located in the first place. We believe the projects were purposely targeted for the townships of western Lehigh County as a means to foster the enhanced urbanization of the Lehigh Valley. Meanwhile, in Allentown, within a relative short period the Horlacher and Neuweiler Breweries ceased operation as well as the Arbogast & Bastian Meat packing Plant. The blighting remains of these operations haunted Allentown's Sixth and first ward landscape into the new 21st Century. But interestingly, boarded up windows and doors provide great opportunity for politicians to hang up their campaign posters especially on the Neuweiler building. Recently, however there has been some movement to bring these old properties back to life. At the Old A &B site a new Mack Truck supported America On Wheels, automotive museum offers a glimpse of the past, present and future of the nation's over-the-road transportation system and seeks to preserve its legacy by looking back in time, collecting valuable artifacts and vehicles and illustrating the tremendous impact transportation has had on people's daily lives. However, any proposed re- development of the Neuweiler tract might take years to materialize.

Indeed, it is the intent of this study to present a reminder of the hidden destructive nature of the beast --- the developing Megalopolis of the Lehigh Valley.

We also note --- in the process of creating the system, a lot of mistakes were made. Unfortunately these same mistakes have done damage to the City of Allentown and will impact on other Lehigh Valley communities as well. What bothers this writer the most about this situation is the fact that Allentown's water supply has become threatened by this rush within the last forty years to urbanize western Lehigh County. This is indeed sad for an earlier generation of Allentonians developed Allentown's park system in order to preserve for itself a safe water supply. But now both the water supply and the Allentown Park system seem to be threatened by the intentions of area developers

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A listing of major water facilities operated and maintained by the city of Allentown

d. Watershed ---- approximately 550 acres of land abutting the Little Lehigh Creek upstream from the water plant are owned by the City and managed as a recreation area by the Bureau of Parks in a manner designed to protect thewater supply. Another 415 acres of land along Cedar Creek and Little Cedar Creek are city owned and managed by the Bureau of Parks in a like manner.

If an individual drives along Martin Luther King Parkway, that individual will find much construction activity at the aging Allentown Water Filtration Plant. The City of Allentown is in process of updating and modernizing its water processing operations.

The Engineer's Annual Report on the Public Water Supply of the City of Allentown, Pennsylvania --- 1992 contains the following history of the Allentown Water System... According to Donald S. Lichty, longtime City of Allentown Chiefutility Engineer, the public water supply in Allentown had its inception in 1816 when the state legislature authorized the formation of the private Northampton Water Company. A water system soon was constructed and in operation by thelate 1820's using Crystal Spring as the source of supply. A water powered pumping station lifted the spring water to a reservoir at Fountain and Maple Streets... In 1869 the City of Allentown purchased the system and a new steam pumping station was established in the converted Fountain House Hotel at Crystal Spring.... Because of increased demand, Schantz's spring was purchased as an additional source in 1898, and placed in service in 1903 after completion of a five-mile long gravity pipeline from the spring to the pumpingstation.... Increased population growth and industrial water usage in the City created the need for an additional supply, so a water treatment plant designed to process Little Lehigh River Water was placed in operation in 1929. Watersupplies were adequate until the late 1940's when continued population growth and new industries necessitated planning to increase the capacity of the treatment plant from 10 to 30 million gallons per day. The expansion wascompleted in 1953. A fourth water source, intended to serve as a back-up water supply, was developed in the 1980's by construction of an intake and raw water pumping station on the Lehigh River ... This facility, whose need was oft-timesquestioned by Harry Forker, is currently only being exercised semi-monthly due to a siltation problem at the passive intake screens. However, city engineers are confident, that the system could be used to supply water to the Allentown watersystem by intensive use of screen cleaning apparatus. A study of the problem completed by Malcolm Pirnie Inc. in 1990 recommended construction of an on- shore intake structure to replace the screens. .... Today, the Allentown water system serves an estimated population of 130,000 in the City and its suburbs, through a distribution system of almost 300 miles of pipe and three major storage reservoirs (South Mountain Reservoir, East Side Reservoir, andHuckleberry Ridge Reservoir) which can hold 50 million gallons of treated water. Please note --- since 1979, the daily average water pumpage has decreased from 28.28 million gallons to 19.23 millions gallons. But interestinglythe cost of providing this service has increased from 4.075 million dollars in budget year 1980 to $14.623 million dollars in budget year 1996.... Harry Forker time after time warned us about this increased cost in providing water service toAllentown consumers

Of course, if it were possible, we would turn back the clock to undo the haphazard, wasteful and incomplete work of a wastewater treatment network which ironically was proven inadequate to satisfy even the speculative spatialurban wants of its creators.